Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this first-ever survey of its kind is that it calls attention to the very large number of artists presently active in Britain. It details the professional careers of over 10,500 painters, sculptors and installation artists. Clearly it has taken an enormous amount of dedicated and pioneering research to compile such a vast amount of detailed information. The entries are biographical, with details of the artist's training, awards and commissions. They include a few words describing the nature of the art being made, and the media used. Exhibition venues and dates of one-person and group shows are listed, as are activities such as teaching and commercial design.

It is good to find all the famous British figures, as well as artists who took refuge in Britain from political persecution. It is equally satisfying to note that well-known "classics" such as Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth have not been given hugely long entries, which has allowed more space for artists who have been active only since the 1970s. The greatest virtue of the dictionary is that it is up-to-date with the present state of the art, including many people who have "flourished" since the 1980s. The dictionary is indispensable in providing biographical and professional details about an artist who may be unfamiliar, although inevitably it cannot be an exhaustive record.

It fails only in one respect. There is no attempt to provide a picture of what kind of artistic development has been taking place, or to describe popular styles and trends and to which tendencies an artist may belong. There is little about the artist's particular way of working or the artistic content or style of his or her production. Even the longer entries, for example the one for painter and draughtsman Jesse Dale Cast, may say nothing about the individual nature of the artist's work. Installation art does not get a mention, even though the work of Phyllida Barlow, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread and others has recently been predominantly in that genre.

The lack of stylistic "compartmentalisation" will probably please the artists themselves, who often dislike being squeezed into restrictive styles and categories. It also reflects the rapid transitions in style which are a characteristic feature of postwar artistic production.

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The book is an admirable piece of painstaking research. Every artist will be pleased to find that his or her contribution to British and world art has been documented. It will become a must for curators and art dealers. Fine art and design faculties at universities will find it invaluable. It should also be a standard reference book in public libraries.

Corinna Lotz is a freelance art historian and critic who studied at the Courtauld Institute.

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